Mercy International Association works digital preservation miracles with Preservica

Mercy International Association (MIA) will use Preservica’s cloud-hosted preservation platform to future-proof its unique digital artefacts and create a new global online resource.

Oxford, UK and Boston, MA. May 24, 2018

Mercy International Association (MIA), the organisation of the leaders of Mercy congregations, institutes and federations throughout the world, has chosen Preservica’s cloud-hosted active digital preservation platform to protect and provide wider global access to its unique digitised and born-digital artefacts.

MIA is the most extensive collaboration arising from the religious institute Sisters of Mercy, founded by Catherine McAuley in Dublin, Ireland in 1831. Their heritage team provides oversight for MIA artefacts and archives currently held at Mercy International Centre in Dublin, linked to more than 190 years of charitable work.

Highlights of the collection held at Mercy International Centre are artefacts associated with Catherine McAuley. These include personal letters, items of memorabilia, and a number of gifts received from friends and benefactors. Special items are on permanent loan to the Mercy International Centre, including Catherine McAuley’s profession ring and cincture. The heritage team will use Preservica to safeguard digitised images of these items, ensuring they are accessible to view world-wide and available for future generations.

2019 also marks the 25^th anniversary of the MIA’s foundation, and the Association plans to digitise and host a large online exhibition to be made available to the general public. Preservica’s active digital preservation and access solution will allow much of the Association’s cultural heritage to be made readily accessible for the first time.

Anna Nicholls, Head of Heritage and Spirituality at MIA, commented: “We want to make our work visible to everyone involved with MIA, from the occasional volunteers to the CEOs of large Mercy organisations, and most importantly, the public. In 2017 we had 8,500 visitors to Mercy International Centre in Dublin, but globally we have half a million engaged individuals. Our current archiving system is not fit for purpose; we are simply storing digitised and born-digital items on local servers, and have a large amount of hard to access paper files.

“After a competitive tender process, Preservica’s active digital preservation solution was chosen due to its impressive ease of use, integrated access portal and wide range of capabilities. These will allow us to create a living and accessible archive, by flexibly managing and enriching our digital collection over time. With Preservica, we can confidently transform our current physical archive into a globally-accessible digital resource.”

Mike Quinn, CEO of Preservica, added: “It’s a privilege to have been chosen by Mercy International Association to safeguard digital artefacts of huge cultural and spiritual significance. As the Association approaches its 25^thanniversary, we’re pleased to be supporting their work to protect and make these unique artefacts accessible online for future generations”

ENDS

Notes to Editors

About MIA

Mercy International Association is an organisation of the leaders of Mercy Congregations, Institutes and Federations throughout the world, founded to serve the Sisters of Mercy, their associates and colleagues in ministry. Members of the Association share the passion of their foundress, Catherine McAuley, to bring mercy to people who are poor, sick and uneducated.

The Purpose of the Association is:

• To foster unity of mind and heart among Sisters of Mercy and to increase awareness and experience of their global interdependence.
• To facilitate collaboration among the Congregations, Institutes and Federations to meet the needs of today and to work for justice.
• To encourage and nurture the flourishing of the Mercy charism within the various cultures of the world.

Mercy International Association is a registered charity in Ireland.

Preservica is changing the way organisations around the world protect and future-proof critical long-term digital information. Available on premise or in the cloud (SaaS), our award-winning active digital preservation software has been designed from the ground-up to tackle the unique challenges of ensuring digital information remains accessible and trustworthy over decades.

It’s a proven solution that's trusted by a growing number of businesses, archives, libraries, museums and government organisations around the world - including the Associated Press, Transport for London (TfL), Texas State Library and Archives, MoMA, Yale, and HSBC - to name a few.

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